Region 1

From expansive cattle ranches dotted with moss-draped oak trees, to white-sand beaches, to the Everglades, one of the world’s unique natural landscapes, Southwest Florida has much to offer visitors. At the southern tip of Florida’s Gulf Coast, Everglades City is the front door to the mysterious and captivating Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. The Everglades, the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States, is not just a vast swamp, but a rare forest full of wildlife. This beautiful wilderness is accessible here for tours of all types: boat, plane, bike, airboat, even walking.

On the western edge of the Everglades in Chokoloskee is Ted Smallwood Store, a 1906 general-store-turned museum that displays old patent medicines, antique ledgers, hand tools and the stories of the pioneers who tamed the vast Everglades wilderness. Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park adjacent to Big Cypress in Copeland is known as The Amazon of North America, where human activity has been documented as far back as 2,500 years. Experience a wide array of habitats and forest types, including a high level of rare and endangered tropical plants.